Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says he still expects a close fight with Ferrari during the 2019 F1 season despite his team’s strong start to the season in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes lock-out of the front row of the grid, seven-tenths of a second clear of Sebastian Vettel’s third placed Ferrari. However Wolff believes Ferrari will continue to be as competitive as they have in the last two seasons.“I would like it to continue [this] way of course but I don’t believe this is what we can expect,” he said. “I think the championship is going to be equally fought over like it was last year.
“Just because we had a very good Friday and a very good first Saturday in Melbourne It doesn’t mean this will be a ‘home run’ for the championship. On the contrary I think we will, like last year, need to stretch ourselves to the maximum and leave no stone unturned, like we did after Barcelona, in order to keep ourselves competitive in the way we’ve been today.”
Mercedes were generally not on Ferrari’s pace during pre-season testing, which Wolff said made Mercedes suspicious of the pace they showed yesterday.
“When we came to Australia and hit the road running on Friday it was difficult to know what to expect. Whether we were quickest or not quickest, whether it would be very close.
“And we had a great Friday. Didn’t trust it completely. And the car was equally good today. And it’s just all the work that has gone in since we started testing and the analysis since then that put a car on-track that is really fast.
“But it wasn’t the easiest of starts in Barcelona and we can’t judge yet if it’s a bit of an outlier because Melbourne is different, whether generally we have a car that is as fast as it seemed today.”
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Iosif (@afonic)
16th March 2019, 11:38
The gap in Melbourne qualifying was about the same last year. Tomorrow we’ll be able to compare race pace, I just hope that Vettel – Verstappen will be able the make turn 1 without crashing.
If Mercedes just flies into the distance, it could be ominous for the season…
Esploratore (@esploratore)
17th March 2019, 1:13
Yes, checking the first laps’ race pace will be very important, I remember doing it in 2018 and being quite pleased at hamilton pulling away at only 1,5-2 tenths per lap from raikkonen, who as we know wasn’t as fast as at his prime any more, while he was the better ferrari driver in australia 2018, if neither ferrari nor red bull can keep up with the mercedes it looks bad indeed.
Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
16th March 2019, 11:39
Yeah ok…
Palle (@palle)
16th March 2019, 12:55
Haas had a good season start in Melbourne last year as well – that is, until first pitstop in the race:-(
Ferrari ended up as winners of the first half of the season, until Vettel cracked without any pressure, then Mercedes and Hamilton ran away with it for several reasons. So we can’t assume how the season ends based on this first qualifying, even if the trends don’t reveal much changes compared to last year.